Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex Demonized #1) - Annette Marie Page 0,47
each other’s quiet murmurs over the blaring television. This was the first motel we’d found and we’d checked into the double-queen room thirty minutes ago. Amalia had cleaned and bandaged her scraped elbows and knees with the first-aid kit from the front desk while I told her the whole story.
“You couldn’t have had much time to lay out a contract,” she muttered, picking at a tear in the skirt of her dress. “You definitely missed a few key clauses.”
“What are the key clauses?”
“There are a lot. What did you include in your contract?”
“Well, he …” I fidgeted with the infernus’s chain around my neck. “He has to protect me.”
“That’s vague. What else?”
“In exchange, I’m supposed to … make him cookies.”
She stared at me expectantly, waiting for the joke’s punchline. “Are you serious?”
“I was bleeding to death,” I mumbled in embarrassment. “It was all I could think of.”
“You’re supposed to promise the demon your soul when you die.”
“Why would I give him my soul?”
“Don’t you know what the Banishment Clause is?” When I shook my head, she sighed. “Okay, so once a demon is summoned to Earth, it can’t return to its own world—except with a soul it’s bound to. When you die, the demon is supposed to use your soul to escape our world. The Banishment Clause is crucial to a contract because without it, your demon is set loose when you die.”
“Zylas wanted my soul, but I said no.”
She huffed. “The demon must’ve been more desperate than you to agree to that. What else did you negotiate?”
“That’s it.”
“No, I mean, what other clauses did you two agree on?”
“None.”
“What do you mean, none?”
I shrugged self-consciously. “He protects me in exchange for baked goods. That’s … that’s the whole contract.”
Horrified disbelief twisted her face and she turned toward the room’s opposite end. I followed her gaze.
Zylas was crouched on the dresser, his tail swishing back and forth in front of the drawers. His nose was an inch from the wall-mounted TV, his head tilted. As we watched, he leaned sideways to peer behind the screen, trying to figure out where the picture and sound were coming from.
“Protect you,” Amalia whispered with a shudder. “You know a proper contract is about fifty pages long, right? You have to cover every possible scenario or the demon will find a loophole. Did you even define what ‘protect you’ involves?”
“No. He says he gets to decide what it means.”
Shivering again, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you realize that demon doesn’t have to obey you? It can do whatever it wants, as long as you aren’t hurt in the process. I don’t understand why it isn’t already on a killing spree.”
Zylas’s tail lashed, thudding against the dresser. He peered around the other side of the television.
“I explained to him how I’d be executed if the MPD found out I’m in an illegal contract,” I told her. “I think that’s why he’s behaving so well. If he draws attention to himself, it would put me in danger.”
“And putting you in danger would violate the protection clause,” Amalia murmured. “That’s a good sign.”
“What happens if he violates a clause?”
“Demons never violate their contracts. The magic binds them somehow. You can violate it, though. If you do, the contract magic weakens, so make sure you bake that bastard all the cookies it wants.” Her face hardened and she leaned close to whisper in my ear. “You’d better keep that demon one hundred percent convinced you can’t survive without me.”
I nodded earnestly. If Zylas decided Amalia wasn’t necessary anymore, he’d kill her.
She sat back against the headboard. “All right, first things first. You’re an illegal contractor, which means you’re officially a rogue and—”
Crunch.
Zylas, still crouched on the dresser, now held the television, which he’d ripped off its wall mount. As a crappy made-for-TV movie blared from the speakers, he studied the television’s back, then tore the cord out. The sound cut off and the picture went dark.
Amalia continued as though we hadn’t witnessed anything out of the ordinary. “You’re a rogue, so your best bet is to find a rogue guild and—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “Doesn’t Uncle Jack have a system for forging his clients’ paperwork? So they can be legal contractors?”
“Yeah, but he uses special forms that his MPD contact has prepared, and without those …”
She trailed off as I jumped up. Zylas paused midway through prying the plastic backing off the TV to watch me dig through my suitcase. I pulled out my cantrips textbook and